what is the most important factor to me is the quality of life provided by different energy sources.
personally wind is the big winner there for me.
Full disclosure: I like sailing.
I really like wind power. I think wind farms look beautiful. But they aren't capable of supplying anything like as much power as we need.
I'm just saying that of all energy sources we have today the wind energy has the least negative impact on our lives.
My own disclosure: have positions in uranium, which have taken a bath this week :)
I'm also not quite sure what you mean by "the quality of life provided by different sources" - surely wind lights your lights just like nuclear does?
at what cost? and by cost I don't mean market cost. surely cost of electricity in Japan didn't account for nuclear meltdown possibility, thus far.
of course nuclear is still better than coal, which requires huge open pit mines and produces incredible amounts of dust, radioactivity of which is greater than all nucleotides released from nuclear power plants as far as I understand.
They did, up to a point. All the safety measure that are build into the reactors have to be paid for.
Many/most US coal mines are not open pit so "requires" is a bit strong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_coal_mines_in_the_Unite...
Yes, really. The claim, which I disputed, was that open pit was required. Showing 50/50 (open/closed) disproves that claim.
Why isn't hydro used more? (2% of world production according to the post). Once built it will generate: * Alot of power, as opposed to wind/solar. * With zero emissions, as opposed to coal/oil. * That requires no storage of dangerous waste, as opposed to nuclear. Win, win, win.